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CRITIC'S PICKS | 10 Concerts You Absolutely Need To See In Toronto This Week (June 3 – 9)

By Joseph So on June 3, 2019

Classical Music and Opera Events, Toronto, June 3–9, 2019.
Classical music and opera events happening in and around Toronto for the week of June 3 – 9.

Critic’s Picks (June 3 – 9)

Ludwig van Toronto’s weekly Critic’s Picks are a curated list of some of the best concerts happening now through the end of the week. For a look at the full breadth of what’s available in and around Toronto, check out our curated concert listings here.

Monday 3

Tafelmusik | Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Festival: Opening Night. 8 p.m. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre 427 Bloor St. W. Free. Advance Priority Seating tickets no longer available online. Those without tickets seated based on availability.

Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Festival (June 3 – 15) is presenting five free concerts in conjunction with its summer institute. It kicks off with this free event, featuring the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, directed by Elisa Citterio and Ivars Taurins, with guest artist baritone Peter Harvey.  | Details

Wednesday 5

National Ballet of Canada | Physical Thinking. 7:30 p.m. Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. W. $40-$265. Continues to June 8. Check website for additional show times.

Physical Thinking continues this week.  It’s an evening of works by choreographer William Forsythe — The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Approximate Sonata and The Second Detail, set to music by Franz Schubert and Thom Willems. | Details

Toronto Symphony Orchestra | Brahms Symphony No. 4.  8 p.m. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. $40.75-$154. Repeats June 6 & 8.

German conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens makes his TSO debut conducting the Brahms Symphony No. 4. Also on the program is the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1, with Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki. | Details

Canadian Music Centre | The Canadian Piano Left-Hand Commissioning Project. 8 p.m.  PWYC but ticket required – Details can be found in the link below. Canadian Music Centre, 20 St. Joseph St.

Due to recent injuries to his right arm, composer Adam Scime has commissioned eight Canadian composers to write works for piano left hand, to be premiered in this concert, alongside Canadian and international piano repertoire performed by Adam Sherkin. | Details

Thursday 6

Syrinx Concerts Toronto | Ishay Shaer in Concert. 7:30 p.m. Mazzoleni Concert Hall, Royal Conservatory of Music, 273 Bloor St. W. $32/$22(st) at the door.

Israeli pianist Ishay Shaer plays Beethoven: Sonata for Piano Op 111; Debussy: 2 Etudes; Chopin: Sonata #3 B- Op.58; and Canadian composer Jean Coulthard: Image Astrale. | Details

Tapestry Opera | Book of My Shames. 8 p.m. Ernest Balmer Studios, 315-9 Trinity Street, Distillery District, Toronto. $30. Repeats June 7 & 8.

Book of My Shames is a one-man show by Canadian tenor Isaiah Bell, whom I interviewed in LvT when he sang Antinous in COC’s Hadrian. He explains: “(This show is) part confessional comedy, part opera séance, part love letter to lost innocence. I’m a good and happy modern gay, thanks very much: sufficiently erudite, reasonably camp, ambitious, polite. But there’s this other me that’s at odds with all that; this tender part that has been left behind in the dark. Shame maintains the gap between us. This is my Rosetta Stone between two halves of a broken heart.” | Details

Helga Schmidt, Attila Glatz Concert Productions and Elev8 Global Entertainment | Jonathan Antoine Live In Concert. 7:30 p.m. Winter Garden Theatre, 189 Yonge St. Repeats June 8.

Cross-over fans take note – British tenor Jonathan Antoine, star of Britain’s Got Talent, is in town to give two concerts, featuring music from popular songs and arias, including “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot, this last a sort of anthem for pop tenors these days. | Details

Luminato Festival/Lua Shayenne Productions | KIRA: The Path/La Voie. 8 p.m. Fleck Dance Theatre, 207 Queen’s Quay West. $35-$50. Additional daily performance to June 9. Check website for details.

While Luminato (June 7-23) has move away from hardcore classical music programming in recent years, it’s decidedly a premiere summer festival for the adventurous audience member. On the eve before official opening is this show — “KIRA celebrates humanity as one village, and its sacred bond to Mother Nature in this evocative work of dance, live percussion and chants by renowned Guinean artist Fara Tolno.”  | Details

Saturday 8

Kindred Spirits Orchestra | Schnittke and Schönberg. 8 p.m. Cornell Recital Hall, 3201 Bur Oak Avenue, Markham. $20

As part of the Markham Contemporary Music Festival, Kindred Spirits Orchestra (Kristian Alexander, conductor) performs Schnittke’s Concerto for piano and strings, and Schönberg’s Kammersymphonie Op. 9. Antonia deWolf is the pianist. This concert also features an audio-visual presentation on the lives of these two composers. | Details

Sunday 9

Off Centre Music Salon | Russian Salon: Ages & Stages. 3 p.m. Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. W. $50/$40(sr)/$15(young adult).

This Russian Salon spots a program of works by Mussorgsky, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.  Performers are Lara Dodds-Eden, piano; Tyler Duncan, baritone; Julie Hereish, cello; Sheila Jaffe, violin; Inna Perkis, piano; Boris Zarankin, piano; and Ilana Zarankin, soprano. | Details

LUDWIG VAN TORONTO

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Joseph So
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